Halls of ivy

[Dennis R. Preston]

I tell my students this is Occam's sledge-hammer.

dInIs

>On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote (quoting an inquirer):
>
>> >>  I am asking for your help.  The phrase _halls of ivy_ has few references
>> in encyclopedias or dictionaries.  Somewhere I remember hearing that it
>> referred to the Roman numeral _IV_ for the four original universities in
>> this country.  Surely it is not simply from the tradition of planting
>> university buildings with ivy?  <<
>
>I don't have an answer yet, but I find this question amusing since it is
>so emblematic of popular attitudes toward etymology.  Sort of the opposite
>of Occam's Razor, as an extremely far-fetched explanation is advanced
>while the obvious and undoubtedly truthful explanation is prefaced with
>"Surely it is not simply from..."
>
>
>Fred R. Shapiro                             Coeditor (with Jane Garry)
>Associate Librarian for Public Services     TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD
>  and Lecturer in Legal Research            ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES
>Yale Law School                             Oxford University Press, 1998
>e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               ISBN 0-19-509547-2


Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736